


that you may know (the secrets of your heart)

by peacefrog



Series: box of chocolates [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/pseuds/peacefrog
Summary: Eliot and Quentin don't talk about their feelings. Hand stuff is still banging.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: box of chocolates [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652323
Comments: 20
Kudos: 162





	that you may know (the secrets of your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [for love (if it finds you worthy).](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22719652) I wrote this in a day. I don't know what came over me.

Eliot startled awake to something sharp and pointed slamming into his shin. He opened his eyes, and the toe of Margo’s shoe made contact one last time. Pain seared up the side of his leg, and he winced. Jesus, she really did not realize her own strength sometimes. Or the strength of her Jimmy Choo’s.

At his side, Quentin gasped and pulled away, looking rumpled and dazed and adorable.

“Morning sunshine,” Margo said. “Wake up. I’m not ready to quit drinking yet.”

A cacophony of sounds carried over from the kitchen. Kady singing, Josh laughing. The clank of dishes being pulled from cabinets. The sigh of a beer popping open, the cap clattering to the floor. The flick of a lighter, then the unmistakable hum of someone casting a pyro spell. Everybody cheering, clapping. Julia laugh-shouting, “Oh shit, put it out!”

Quentin looked at Eliot, looked at Margo, looked over his shoulder into the kitchen and groaned. He mumbled something that sounded like, “Good night,” before stumbling to his feet and making for the stairs.

Eliot jumped up after him, and Margo grinned. “You going to bed with Coldwater, hm?”

“Mind your business, Bambi,” he said with a smile, snatching up the box of chocolates from the sofa. “I’ll drink with you tomorrow. Promise.”

He kissed the top of her head, went to the staircase, wound his way up to the second floor. He went to Quentin’s room, but it was empty. It was across the hall, in Eliot’s own bed, that he found him. Curled up in the middle over the covers with his knees tucked to his chest, like he was trying to make himself small. His back was to the door. It made Eliot’s heart clench tightly under his ribs.

He tossed the chocolates on the nightstand, kicked off his shoes. Eliot’s bed was some ridiculous thing that took up half the room, a California king on steroids. So big that when he sprawled next to Quentin, their bodies didn’t quite touch. Eliot rolled onto his side, reaching across the distance to touch Quentin’s shoulder, gently.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you want me to hold you?”

Quentin breathed in deep, pushed it out, mumbling over his shoulder, “Yes please.”

Quentin untucked his legs, and Eliot shimmed over until they were pressed all tightly together, back-to-chest. He hooked one arm under Quentin and draped it over his shoulder, across his chest, wrapped the other around his middle and pulled him close. He drew his legs in so they’d line up a little more. It wasn’t perfect, because Eliot was a fucking giant next to Quentin apparently, but when Quentin sighed, and settled back against him, it was like the stars were aligning just for them. Like this was what their bodies were created to do.

Quentin was all sleepy-soft and warm and pliant, and it was like a shot of heroin straight to Eliot’s bloodstream. Eliot had never actually tried heroin, but he imagined it would be something like this. Better than any goddamn drug he’d ever snorted or smoked or otherwise ingested. And he smelled good. God, he smelled so fucking good. Eliot could have devoured him right then, feasted on his body for hours. 

And he kind of hated himself for trying to start _that_ conversation earlier. That was a terrible idea. Possibly the worst he’d ever had. His brain had always been a traitorous little bitch. He was probably screwed now. They probably had to talk about it.

“So,” he said. “Should we talk about, um…”

“Sleeping,” Quentin mumbled.

“Okay.” Eliot let a silent laugh roll through him. “Sorry.”

“Can’t believe you wanna talk about feelings when sleeping is right here.”

Eliot’s chest ached, warm and light and a little terrified. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me, truly.”

Quentin sighed. “I can’t believe _you_ would want to talk about feelings.”

Eliot grinned into Quentin’s hair. “I think I might be coming down with something.”

Quentin made a sleepy little sound. Eliot thought it sounded happy. “I’ll be your Valentine, but I don’t wanna talk about the other stuff right now.”

“Okay.” Relief washed over Eliot like a sigh, and he pressed a kiss to the curve of Quentin’s neck. It was soft, barely a press of his lips, but Quentin jumped in his arms.

“Don’t do that.”

“Sorry.”

Eliot wondered if maybe he should pull back, loosen his grip, stop rubbing his crotch against Quentin’s ass in a way that was definitely going to make him hard if he wasn’t careful. But Quentin reached up, clutching at his arms, and he couldn’t bear the thought of breaking contact.

“It’s not…” Quentin pushed all the air from his lungs. “I really like it when you do that.”

“Okay…” Eliot swallowed. “I won’t do… the thing you like.”

Quentin huffed a laugh. “We shouldn’t have sex,” he said. “But I want to.”

Eliot’s pulse leapt, and he inched his hips back just a little. This was a very dangerous game. “Q…”

“We should talk first.” Quentin sounded pained, confused. Eliot wished he could see his face, and was more than a little glad that he couldn’t. “That would be the smart thing to do.”

“But you don’t wanna talk right now,” Eliot said, pressing his nose behind Quentin’s ear, tempting his mouth to push a little further.

“I don’t wanna talk.” Quentin pushed back against him, and Eliot tensed. “I kind of hate everything right now. Except for you.”

Eliot smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Eliot pressed his lips right to Quentin’s ear, feeling a shudder roll through him. “How about some chocolate?”

Quentin laughed. “How did I forget about the chocolate?”

“I gave you my heart, Coldwater.” Eliot started to pull away. Quentin’s hands chased after him. “And I expect you to eat it.”

They separated themselves long enough for Eliot to get the box from the nightstand. He magicked the plastic and the lid away with a few simple tuts, and Quentin flipped over onto his back, smiling. Eliot knelt at his side, fingers scanning over the chocolates, the varying shapes and patterns distinguishing each flavor from the next. “I should have checked the lid,” he said, and Quentin grinned so wide it made his eyes go all squinty.

“I don’t care. Just put something in my mouth.”

There was heat to his words, stoking a fire gently in his dark eyes. Eliot did his best to ignore it, and to ignore the way his hands were shaking when he plucked a white chocolate square from the box. “How about this one?”

Quentin nodded, let his lips fall open in a way that made Eliot’s toes curl up tightly in his socks. They weren’t having sex. And he wasn’t going to kiss Quentin until he was breathless and fucking begging for cock. Because they had to talk about their feelings first. And feelings were the worst. So they were just going to eat chocolate instead.

Eliot pressed the chocolate to Quentin’s parted mouth, and Quentin took it inside, along with Eliot’s fingers, which definitely wasn’t part of the plan. And then Quentin fucking moaned, and sealed his lips around Eliot’s fingertips, and _sucked,_ and Eliot was pretty sure he was going to pass out.

Eliot pulled away. Quentin swallowed, catching his wrist, and Eliot was helpless to resist this particular temptation. His tongue darted out, lapping at the pad of Eliot’s index finger and his thumb, and when he was through with that he sucked them clean, his eyes trained on Eliot in a way that made a pathetic little whimper catch in his throat.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Eliot said, snatching his hand away. “Not if you expect me to…”

“Sorry,” Quentin said. “Come here.”

“Q.”

“El.”

Blood pumped hotly in Eliot’s neck. _Breathe. Just fucking breathe._ He sent the chocolates back to the nightstand with a flick of his wrist, curled up facing Quentin in the middle of the bed. They had all their clothes on, but still it felt too intimate.

“We can’t,” he said when Quentin’s hand curled around his nape “Q, you said…”

“I know what I said.”

“If I can’t kiss your neck, you can’t touch me like this.”

Quentin pulled his hand away, and Eliot felt it like a wound. Like the absence of his touch should leave a scar behind. “Sorry. You’re very touchable.”

Eliot rolled over onto his back, a smile tugging at his lips, his face burning hot, his dick waking up in spite of his efforts. “I’m gonna go downstairs, okay? Have a drink with Margo.”

“Okay,” Quentin said, but Eliot didn’t budge.

Quentin turned his back and Eliot held him again. Everything was quiet. By some miracle, his dick calmed the fuck down long enough for the two of them to drift away. They slept until morning. They didn’t talk about it after the sun came up.

And it continued on like this for days. The cuddling, the almost but not quite letting their hands roam. The refusal to talk about anything that mattered. Eliot’s lips brushing against the back of Quentin’s neck. Quentin tensing, muttering something about a boner. Eliot laughing, blushing, going to the bathroom to jerk off, muffling his cries into his open palm. He was pretty certain Quentin had been doing the same.

One night, a week after Valentine’s Day, Quentin was curled around Eliot’s back and said, “Hand stuff isn’t technically sex,” and Eliot nearly choked.

Eliot turned in his arms, heart going absolutely wild in his chest as he brushed a strand of hair out of Quentin’s face. “We could just talk about it, you know.”

Quentin smiled. “Doesn’t sound like us.”

“I know,” Eliot said. “But it could be. We could be evolved, mature human beings who talk about their feelings, and then have all the guilt-free sex they want.”

Quentin considered this with a smirk. “Or you could just let me jack you off under the covers. The guilt might make it hotter.”

Eliot’s blood began to stir, warming in his veins. “What do we feel guilty about again?”

Quentin shrugged. “Something about you being an idiot.”

“Of course.” Eliot smiled, moving in a little closer, nuzzling into him. “If you want me to jack you off, Quentin, you only have to ask.”

A breath stuttered out of Quentin’s chest. “Thought I was the one jacking you off.”

“Terribly selfish of you,” Eliot purred, kissing the tip of Quentin’s nose. “Ask me.”

“El…” He clutched at the back of Eliot’s shirt, the air between them going all hot and fuzzy. “You’re making me hard.”

Eliot hummed, kissed Quentin’s cheek. “You want me to take care of it?”

Quentin shuddered, nodded, looking deep into Eliot’s eyes. “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“Maybe.” Eliot was already tugging at the waistband of Quentin’s pants. “Seems to be our brand.”

Quentin buried his face in the hollow of Eliot’s throat, trembling like a goddamn leaf as Eliot took his dick out and started to stroke. It didn’t take long, only a minute or two, with Quentin clinging to Eliot all the way through it, sobbing into his neck. He pulsed in Eliot’s hand when he came, spattering the front of his shirt, dripping down his fingers. Quentin mouthed at his throat, and Eliot’s brain whited out, and he came in his pants like a fucking virgin, his dick entirely untouched.

“Did you just…” Quentin breathed, laughing.

“Yeah. Jesus fucking…”

They held onto one another after, messy and sated and maybe a little delirious. Quentin said, “I don’t feel guilty,” and Eliot said, “Neither do I.”

“But we probably still have to talk about it.”

Eliot sighed and kissed the top of Quentin’s head. “Yeah. Probably.”

—

As it turns out, having to talk about your feelings doesn’t mean you’re actually going to do it. It just means you’re going to feel bad about it when you don’t. They fell into a routine: cuddling, rutting, hand jobs, sleeping soundly after. They didn’t kiss each other on the mouth, which only felt more ridiculous as the days ticked on. 

Two weeks and two days post-Valentine’s Day, Eliot and Margo sat out on the balcony smoking. She nudged him in the shoulder, startling him from his thoughts. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Eliot had been… somewhere else. In bed with Quentin. Quentin’s teeth biting into his collarbone. Back in the real world, the ash dangling from the end of his cigarette had reached a truly impressive length. “Sorry,” he said. “I… haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Yeah, well, Coldwater’s cock in your mouth every night doesn’t leave much room for sleep I imagine.”

Eliot laughed, tapping the ash away, watching it flutter into nothing. “Coldwater’s cock would have to be in my mouth for that to be an issue.”

She frowned at him, took a drag. “Tell me you two aren’t banging, and you’re a fucking liar, El.”

He shrugged. “Guess I’m a liar then.”

“Bull,” she said. “I heard you two going at it last night. And the night before that. And the night before—”

“It’s complicated,” Eliot cut her off. “We’re just… doing hand stuff.”

“Hand stuff?” She butted out her cigarette, reaching for the bowl they’d packed earlier. “What are you, fourteen?”

“We have to talk about our feelings before we can…” He flicked his cigarette into the ashtray when she handed him the bowl. He took a hit, exhaled, passed it back. “Stop looking at me like that.”

She hit the bowl, set it on the table. “Since when do you two talk about your feelings?”

“We don’t,” he said. “Hence… hand stuff.”

“Hand stuff is still banging,” she said.

“Yeah,” Eliot said. “Probably.”

Eliot made dinner for everyone that night. Even Fen was there. They all gathered around the island in the kitchen shoving tacos into their mouths, clinking glasses together, telling bad jokes, laughing until it hurt. It felt good when they were all together like this. Like the family he never thought he needed, but that he couldn’t imagine living without now that he had it. He thought he might give anything for any one of them. In his bones, he knew that he would.

Every now and then, Quentin would catch his eye across the room, or brush past and touch his arm, his back, his shoulder. It made him feel warm, warmer than the booze steadily pumping in his veins. Warmer than the company of every last friend he had in multiple worlds gathered together in one room. He couldn’t stop looking at Quentin’s mouth. How had he resisted kissing it for so many weeks? The drunker he got, the stupider that seemed.

As the night wore on, he and Quentin drifted closer together, until they found themselves alone in the little reading alcove off the living room. Quentin was drunk, even drunker than Eliot. That was probably Eliot’s fault, he’d been the one feeding him all those dirty martinis after all. But Quentin got giggly when he drank, and Eliot liked him this way.

“I wanna kiss you,” Quentin said, dragging his fingers over the colorful, cracking spines of several ancient-looking books. He laughed and took his bottom lip between his teeth, slowly tipping himself around the room.

“I wanna kiss you too,” Eliot said. “But we should—”

“Talking is stupid,” Quentin said, punctuating his words with a truly ridiculous giggle as he flopped down onto the window seat. “C’mere. I wanna make out with you.”

“Quentin,” Eliot said, hating himself a little more by the second. _What the fuck is your problem, Waugh?_ “We can’t.”

Quentin glared, holding himself upright against a bookcase. “Eliot, I’ve literally had your dick in my hand every night for a week.”

“We agreed that was different.” 

Eliot had never felt more ridiculous in his life. In any of his lives. But they made these stupid, arbitrary rules about what they could and couldn't do before feelings time, and he figured they should at least try and follow them. Or something.

“Okay,” Quentin slurred, reaching out his arms. “I’ll just kiss your neck.”

Fuck it, Eliot thought. That wasn't against the rules. And it’s not like this would be any different from what they were already doing every night while sober. They could control themselves. They’d been doing pretty well so far. He tumbled down next to Quentin and pulled him up into his lap, tipping back his head so Quentin could get at his throat. Quentin’s mouth was on him at once, and his hands, pushing up under Eliot’s shirt.

It all happened so fast. Eliot’s head was swimming, from the booze and the arousal in equal measure, and before he knew what the fuck was hitting him Quentin was fumbling his belt open with the help of a little magic, popping open his fly. “They’ll see us,” Eliot mumbled, absently, holding on for dear life to the back of Quentin’s shirt. “Q, everyone is…”

“They all think we’re fucking anyway,” Quentin said, as though that had anything to do with them seeing Quentin jerking him off right out in the open. On the window seat where Julia liked to read on quiet afternoons. In the room where Alice sometimes…

Whatever objection Eliot had to this whole thing, it got swallowed up in Quentin clumsily pushing his hand down into his pants, getting a hand around his dick. There was no finesse to what he was doing. It was awkward, and Quentin kept laughing against the side of his neck, but it was enough. Fuck, it was more than enough to get Eliot there in a flash.

When Eliot came he saw stars, the whole of the fucking universe unfolding before his eyes. He strangled off a sob as it clawed its way up out of his throat. And when Quentin pulled his hand away, he brought it to his mouth at once, licking his fingers clean, moaning as he went. Eliot thought he might get hard again just from the sound.

Beyond their little alcove, a glass shattered in the kitchen, and someone barked out a laugh. Quentin leaned heavily against Eliot, still mouthing at his neck. Eliot said, “Let me take care of you now.”

Quentin laughed. “Probably too drunk to get it up. Sorry.”

Eliot sighed, rubbing little circles into Quentin’s back. “It’s okay. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Quentin slurred, “I’m gonna kiss you. On your mouth.”

They went to their own beds alone that night, and the next day everyone in the penthouse slept in until the early afternoon. Josh made everyone brunch. Eliot and Quentin sipped Bloody Marys out on the balcony.

“We should talk,” Eliot said.

Quentin hummed. He was wearing an old Brakebills sweater Eliot had left in his room. “Yeah. We should.”

Eliot sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Neither do I,” Quentin said.

Eliot sipped his drink. “You wanna kiss me?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “I wanna kiss you.”

“Come on then,” Eliot said, pulling himself to his feet. “Come up to my room and kiss me.”

They went inside, they went upstairs. Eliot sat on his bed and Quentin walked over, stood between his parted thighs. He touched Eliot’s face, and smiled, and said, “I’m really hungover right now.”

Eliot laughed. “You look really good in my sweater,” he said, tugging at the open front of it, drawing Quentin in.

Their lips slotted together easily. It was all just so fucking easy. Quentin’s mouth, sweet and soft and warm, like it was made just for Eliot to kiss. He was so pliant, Eliot imagined he would let him do anything he wanted. Anything. If only talking could be like this, he thought. Simple. Like Quentin licking at the seam of his mouth, and Eliot opening to him. Quentin sighing, tangling fingers in Eliot’s hair.

“That was nice,” Quentin said when he broke the kiss, nuzzling into Eliot’s face a little.

Eliot hummed, letting his eyes slide shut. “Yeah. It was. You wanna come cuddle with me? I missed you last night.”

Quentin was smiling when Eliot opened his eyes. “That sounds like feelings, El.”

“Maybe,” Eliot said, tugging at Quentin’s sweater. At his sweater that Quentin wore so perfectly. “Come on. I want you in my arms.”

They curved around each other on the bed. Quentin buried his face in Eliot’s chest, their limbs tangling together with a practiced ease. Eliot shut his eyes, breathing in the scent of him. A familiar, aching warmth spread over his chest, through his heart, out to the rest of him. Quentin sighed, so content, and Eliot felt it too. There was no worry, no rush. For now, there was only this.

Eventually, they would talk about all those terrible, frightening things. All those things that Eliot felt sometimes might be too big for his body to contain. The things that made his heart quiver and his hands shake. Eventually, the words would come pouring out. All at once, a little at a time. Neither of them had ever been any good at this. But Eliot thought, maybe, one day, they might get a little closer together.

For now, Quentin was in his arms, so warm, drifting away to dreams. For now, Eliot thought, that was probably enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is a series now? This is a series now. I'm thinking I'll only write one more part, but with these two... who knows. I can't believe they would do this to me personally.


End file.
